American Rhetoric
American Rhetoric is a wonderful resource for speechwriters and public speakers. This ‘online speech bank’ contains a library of over 5,000 speeches on video, audio and transcript. The cornucopia of speeches includes everyone from Cate Blanchett (as Elizabeth I) unifying the Church of England in the 16th Century to Barack Obama unifying the Democratic Party in the 21st Century.
In addition to speeches from politics, religion, the movies and more, other treats on the site include scholarly definitions of rhetoric, like this from Gerard A. Hauser:
Rhetoric is an instrumental use of language. One person engages another person in an exchange of symbols to accomplish some goal. It is not communication for communication’s sake. Rhetoric is communication that attempts to coordinate social action. For this reason, rhetorical communication is explicitly pragmatic. Its goal is to influence human choices on specific matters that require immediate attention.
What is your favorite speech on the site, and why?
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Thanks for the pointer to American Rhetoric.
My favorite? For the purpose of saying something worthwhile I’ll give you three, because it’s so hard to go past number 1 with Dr. King.
1. MLK’s I have a dream - Because it is electrifying. Hair still stands up on the back of my neck.
2. Mary Church Terrell’s 1906 speech about being colored in the Capital of the U.S. - It’s very well written, and must have taken lots of courage to deliver. I suspect it was very illuminating for its’ time.
3. Cool Hand Luke: Failure to communicate - A reminder of time spent watching movies in my youth, and the rebellious anti-establishment late 1960’s, although that was exactly what the speaker was trying to stamp out.
By Bob Meade on 06.13.07 2:40 am
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